Bitcoin 20MB Fork

[cbeast]

reasonable discussion

The mistake that you, and quite a few other people, are making is that what makes money security has something to do with transactions. It doesn't.

Monetary security is about maintaining the quantity.

When you own some bitcoins, you know precisely what fraction of the bitcoin ledger belongs to you, and that's why Bitcoin is value. What you do or do not spend it on is immaterial.

The best money is the one that provides the most quantity security and is used by the most people.

There is no reason whatsoever to prefer any money except the best money, which is why the market will eventually converge to a single money.

"No reason whatsoever" is the kind of snotty absolutism we expect from a Fundamentalist Monopolist. 

ad hom

You may have no reason whatsoever for using altcoins, but others certainly do.  That's why our alt sub was promoted and expanded.

"Best money" depends on the context.  Traditionally you preserve value with gold and transact with silver, making small change in copper.

Those are not examples of using money. You didn't specify coins or bullion. You don't "preserve value with gold and transact with silver, making small change in copper."

Bitcoin can have the lion's share at the top of the Pareto distribution, but we should expect a long tail of other crypto with varying degrees of suitability for substitution.  If people prefer to use coins based on a silly picture of a dog or constellations of prime numbers, they will.  You need to accept that and move on.

Sure, some folks are scammed. Don't justify it with bad statistics.

The problem with maintaining BTC's monetary security and the GigaBloat fork is that huge blocks will have predictable and unpredictable negative effects on the network.

Pure strawman. You have zero evidence to support that conjecture.

Many do not with to risk BTC's secure store of value function to chase the impossible dream of every Coke machine, laundromat, and hot dog stand transacting directly on the One True Blockchain.

Said nobody.

We were sold Bitcoins backed by a defensible network accessible via TOR or other slow/hardened connections.  Changing the quality of that social contract is no better changing the quantity 21e6 (The Sacred Number).

Bitcoin HD wallets are better than TOR.

[1714866353]

1714866353

[solex]

Just do this already.

The Bitcoin chain that only allows 2-5 million people really using it will quickly die as people migrate to the 20 mb one simply in order to actually USE Bitcoin.

To begin with those opposed to the change is only 40%, screw them. They'll change their minds in a week.

The number opposed is just 20%. The other 20% is like... whatever.

Bitcoin can have the lion's share at the top of the Pareto distribution, but we should expect a long tail of other crypto with varying degrees of suitability for substitution.  If people prefer to use coins based on a silly picture of a dog or constellations of prime numbers, they will.  You need to accept that and move on.

The problem is that the 1MB limit is just so small that eventually Bitcoin would be way down in the long tail of the Pareto distribution, behind even Litecoin which has 4x the volume capacity, and the silly-dog-picture-coin which has 10x the volume capacity of Bitcoin.

Is that what we want and expect of the No.1 cryptocurrency? In fact it can't remain No.1 the way it is.

[hdbuck]

The problem is that the 1MB limit is just so small that eventually Bitcoin would be way down in the long tail of the Pareto distribution, behind even Litecoin which has 4x the volume capacity, and the silly-dog-picture-coin which has 10x the volume capacity of Bitcoin.

Is that what we want and expect of the No.1 cryptocurrency?

POS? really?

[FeedbackLoop]

The number opposed is just 20%. The other 20% is like... whatever.

I was one of the people voting "agnostic". It wasn't "whatever", I wanted to consider a bunch of stuff and see them debated, all of which have now been posted here and/or other places linked here already.  This thread (a million posts later) and the other sources have since convinced to be "pro fork".

Can't change the vote though. Maybe OP could reset the poll to re-sample how opinions have evolved?

[iCEBREAKER]

The problem with maintaining BTC's monetary security and the GigaBloat fork is that huge blocks will have predictable and unpredictable negative effects on the network.

Pure strawman. You have zero evidence to support that conjecture.

You must be new to this thread and have a lot of catching up to do.  But I'm happy to help you with your remedial learning.  Please cry moar about ad hom if it help you cope with being wrong about this:

Exactly what block size the network can support is very much debatable. I currently think that 10 MB would be fine and 50 MB would be too much, though these are mostly just feelings. There should be more rigorous study of the actual limits of the network. (Gavin's done some nice work on the software/hardware front, though I'm still worried about the capabilities of typical Internet connections, and especially how they'll increase over time.)

Exactly. 30 kBps upload is common in Australia, and you sure should be able to run a full node in a typical internet connection in Australia, or Brazil, or Philippines, or whatever. The block size needs to be useful for the (lowest reasonable) common denominator, not the median.

IMO 10 MB is too much, maybe 5 MB.

If you come within 1/3 (and probably much less) of maxing out your network connection, your ability to run Bitcoin is dependent on the government NOT telling your network providers to interfere with certain kinds of traffic.  A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.  If Bitcoin depends on this not happening on a fairly wide scale globally at some point in the future, then it is simply not a very strong solution to me.  Maybe it is to others.  Fine.  I'm not going to be putting a lot of my eggs into that basket however.

Many do not with to risk BTC's secure store of value function to chase the impossible dream of every Coke machine, laundromat, and hot dog stand transacting directly on the One True Blockchain.

Said nobody.

Actually it was tvbcof who said it best:

In the mean time, we have one chance to stay within the constraints of what is achievable behind TOR and realistically likewise hardening methods.  I'm not interested in throwing it away... especially when there is no need and a very promising solution is around the corner.

TOR has nothing to do with the Bitcoin protocol. TOR was compromised recently. If it was used, it would be in very limited fashion.

I've never trusted TOR as many of my posts here in trolltalk make clear.  That's why I phrased things as I did.  Onion routing generally is adds overhead that can dwarf a small payload such as a Bitcoin transaction and other kinds of cloaking (specifically steganography) can add much more.

I think it more likely than not that at some point there will be the long promised 'cyber 9/11' and some big changes to the global internet even here in the 'free world'.  I've no intention of walking away from my stash just because some douche-bag government administrator and media echo-chamber says that a peer-2-peer internet fosters terrorism or whatever.  If it never happens then that is fine and great, but it means that crypto-currencies are just toys and never did become indispensable tools for wealth protection.  If it does then I want to be prepared and have my wealth protected by the most robust solution available.

We were sold Bitcoins backed by a defensible network accessible via TOR or other slow/hardened connections.  Changing the quality of that social contract is no better changing the quantity 21e6 (The Sacred Number).

Bitcoin HD wallets are better than TOR.

You have zero evidence to support that conjecture, just as Gavin has zero authority to change the social contract by excluding slower nodes.

Let's quote tvbcof again:

Some people may remember 'megauploads'.  The case is instructive.

At its peak it accounted for a noticeable percentage of total global internet traffic.  Then, at the flip of a switch it was gone along with everyone's data who had been using the service no matter what the nature of the data.

Why was it so trivial to shut down megauploads?  All of the gear and networks that the service used were trivial to identify and valuable to the owners. 

people who live under the assumption that somehow 'freedom' and 'fairness' is going to protect the Bitcoin network if the mainstream financial players, and thus U.S. govt, wants it shut down are living in a fantasy la-la-land.  There are several things which could keep it going:

 - It more useful alive than dead to the existing powers that be, and/or

 - It is decentralized and supported by gear which is both cloakable and dispensable by the operators.  There would need be a lot of potential operators and they can be born anywhere and pop up anywhere overnight.

[solex]

POS? really?

Not sure what you mean by "POS",  (the 4x and 10x is based upon blocks per 10 mins).

The number opposed is just 20%. The other 20% is like... whatever.

I was one of the people voting "agnostic". It wasn't "whatever", I wanted to consider a bunch of stuff and see them debated, all of which have now been posted here and/or other places linked here already.  This thread (a million posts later) and the other sources have since convinced to be "pro fork".

Can't change the vote though. Maybe OP could reset the poll to re-sample how opinions have evolved?

Fair point. Perhaps hdbuck can amend the poll to let people change their vote...

[BusyBeaverHP]

Why don't we just remove the limit altogether and let the miners decide the blocksize? They've been doing that anyway so instead of an arbitrary cap, just let the market decide?

... either way it's better to pull of the 1MB band-aid than to let it fester with unconfirmed TXS imo.

[BusyBeaverHP]

We're starting to hit the ceiling...

[danielpbarron]

Why don't we just remove the limit altogether and let the miners decide the blocksize? They've been doing that anyway so instead of an arbitrary cap, just let the market decide?

Because this:

VII. The minersⁱ decide.

No, they do not. The miners make some minor decisions in Bitcoin, but major decisions such as block forks are not at their disposition alone, and this for excellent reasons you'll readily understand if you stop and think about it.

There are two specific methods to control miners on this matter, which will make the scamcoin Gavin is trying to replace everyone's Bitcoin with only replace some people's Bitcoin. The first and most obvious is that irrespective of what miners mine, each single full node will reject illegal blocks. This is a fact. If all the miners out there suddenly quit Bitcon and go mine Keiser's Aurora scamcoin instead, from the perspective of the Bitcoin network hash rate simply dropped and that's all. There's absolutely no difference between Keiser's scamcoin and Gavin's scam coin as far as the network is concerned : while one's a scammer that I humiliatingly defeated in the past whereas the other a scammer that I humiliatingly defeat in the future, this makes no difference for Bitcoin. As far as anyone will be able to perceive, miners simply left.

The second and perhaps not as obvious has nevertheless been discussed at length on multiple occasions on #bitcoin-assets. Consider this terse explanation from March. 2013.

mircea_popescu: whoever has enough money to matter is likely to pick one chain for whatever reason
mircea_popescu: since fork means btc can be spent independently on either chain
mircea_popescu: he will sell his btc on one and perhaps buy on the other.
mircea_popescu: as a result prices will rapidly diverge, panicking the mass of users, and the fork is economically resolved.

The situation here is aggravated by the fact that the fork proposed is not simply nondeterministic behaviourⁱⁱ, and so the holdings on the two chains aren't notionally equivalent. Instead, all the holdings on the Bitcoin chain are accepted as valid on both Bitcoin and Gavincoin, but holdings on Gavincoin are rejected by Bitcoin. Consequently, everyone involved with the fork is writing options to everyone in Bitcoin, free of charge. That they have no ready way to finance these should be obvious, and consequently the grim prospects of the Gavin side of the fork should be just as obvious. At least, to people who understand economy to any degree.

And please read the rest of the quoted post before asking any questions in the future.

[onemorexmr]

Why don't we just remove the limit altogether and let the miners decide the blocksize? They've been doing that anyway so instead of an arbitrary cap, just let the market decide?

Because this:

VII. The minersⁱ decide.

No, they do not. The miners make some minor decisions in Bitcoin, but major decisions such as block forks are not at their disposition alone, and this for excellent reasons you'll readily understand if you stop and think about it.

There are two specific methods to control miners on this matter, which will make the scamcoin Gavin is trying to replace everyone's Bitcoin with only replace some people's Bitcoin. The first and most obvious is that irrespective of what miners mine, each single full node will reject illegal blocks. This is a fact. If all the miners out there suddenly quit Bitcon and go mine Keiser's Aurora scamcoin instead, from the perspective of the Bitcoin network hash rate simply dropped and that's all. There's absolutely no difference between Keiser's scamcoin and Gavin's scam coin as far as the network is concerned : while one's a scammer that I humiliatingly defeated in the past whereas the other a scammer that I humiliatingly defeat in the future, this makes no difference for Bitcoin. As far as anyone will be able to perceive, miners simply left.

The second and perhaps not as obvious has nevertheless been discussed at length on multiple occasions on #bitcoin-assets. Consider this terse explanation from March. 2013.

mircea_popescu: whoever has enough money to matter is likely to pick one chain for whatever reason
mircea_popescu: since fork means btc can be spent independently on either chain
mircea_popescu: he will sell his btc on one and perhaps buy on the other.
mircea_popescu: as a result prices will rapidly diverge, panicking the mass of users, and the fork is economically resolved.

The situation here is aggravated by the fact that the fork proposed is not simply nondeterministic behaviourⁱⁱ, and so the holdings on the two chains aren't notionally equivalent. Instead, all the holdings on the Bitcoin chain are accepted as valid on both Bitcoin and Gavincoin, but holdings on Gavincoin are rejected by Bitcoin. Consequently, everyone involved with the fork is writing options to everyone in Bitcoin, free of charge. That they have no ready way to finance these should be obvious, and consequently the grim prospects of the Gavin side of the fork should be just as obvious. At least, to people who understand economy to any degree.

And please read the rest of the quoted post before asking any questions in the future.

well quoting it again doesnt change anything...because the nodes which doesnt switch to the new chain by miners now cant transact anything... because the difficulty is too high for their remaining miners (it will literally takes months for single block to be found).

also it is easy to attack.. bitcoin is only secure as long as most of the worlds sha256 is pointed to it.

[danielpbarron]

Why don't we just remove the limit altogether and let the miners decide the blocksize? They've been doing that anyway so instead of an arbitrary cap, just let the market decide?

Because this:

VII. The minersⁱ decide.

No, they do not. The miners make some minor decisions in Bitcoin, but major decisions such as block forks are not at their disposition alone, and this for excellent reasons you'll readily understand if you stop and think about it.

There are two specific methods to control miners on this matter, which will make the scamcoin Gavin is trying to replace everyone's Bitcoin with only replace some people's Bitcoin. The first and most obvious is that irrespective of what miners mine, each single full node will reject illegal blocks. This is a fact. If all the miners out there suddenly quit Bitcon and go mine Keiser's Aurora scamcoin instead, from the perspective of the Bitcoin network hash rate simply dropped and that's all. There's absolutely no difference between Keiser's scamcoin and Gavin's scam coin as far as the network is concerned : while one's a scammer that I humiliatingly defeated in the past whereas the other a scammer that I humiliatingly defeat in the future, this makes no difference for Bitcoin. As far as anyone will be able to perceive, miners simply left.

The second and perhaps not as obvious has nevertheless been discussed at length on multiple occasions on #bitcoin-assets. Consider this terse explanation from March. 2013.

mircea_popescu: whoever has enough money to matter is likely to pick one chain for whatever reason
mircea_popescu: since fork means btc can be spent independently on either chain
mircea_popescu: he will sell his btc on one and perhaps buy on the other.
mircea_popescu: as a result prices will rapidly diverge, panicking the mass of users, and the fork is economically resolved.

The situation here is aggravated by the fact that the fork proposed is not simply nondeterministic behaviourⁱⁱ, and so the holdings on the two chains aren't notionally equivalent. Instead, all the holdings on the Bitcoin chain are accepted as valid on both Bitcoin and Gavincoin, but holdings on Gavincoin are rejected by Bitcoin. Consequently, everyone involved with the fork is writing options to everyone in Bitcoin, free of charge. That they have no ready way to finance these should be obvious, and consequently the grim prospects of the Gavin side of the fork should be just as obvious. At least, to people who understand economy to any degree.

And please read the rest of the quoted post before asking any questions in the future.

well quoting it again doesnt change anything...because the nodes which doesnt switch to the new chain by miners now cant transact anything... because the difficulty is too high for their remaining miners (it will literally takes months for single block to be found).

also it is easy to attack.. bitcoin is only secure as long as most of the worlds sha256 is pointed to it.

Heh, I quoted the wrong point, but this works out well. You're attempted refutation is proven wrong by exactly this point. In the hypothetical situation where the fork happens, the miners will be forced to switch back to the real chain when nobody buys their newly minted gavincoins at the price they have come to expect. They can't afford to mine at current hash rates if nobody is buying.

Anyway, here is the correct point to have quoted for BusyBeaver:

XI. Raising the limit doesn't force the blocks to be filled. It just gives miners the option to make bigger blocks should market conditions make it to their advantage to do so.

This is not how economics work. Quoting Buffettⁱ :

The domestic textile industry operates in a commodity business, competing in a world market in which substantial excess capacity exists. Much of the trouble we experienced was attributable, both directly and indirectly, to competition from foreign countries whose workers are paid a small fraction of the U.S. minimum wage. But that in no way means that our labor force deserves any blame for our closing. In fact, in comparison with employees of American industry generally, our workers were poorly paid, as has been the case throughout the textile business. In contract negotiations, union leaders and members were sensitive to our disadvantageous cost position and did not push for unrealistic wage increases or unproductive work practices. To the contrary, they tried just as hard as we did to keep us competitive. Even during our liquidation period they performed superbly. (Ironically, we would have been better off financially if our union had behaved unreasonably some years ago; we then would have recognized the impossible future that we faced, promptly closed down, and avoided significant future losses.)

Over the years, we had the option of making large capital expenditures in the textile operation that would have allowed us to somewhat reduce variable costs. Each proposal to do so looked like an immediate winner. Measured by standard return-on-investment tests, in fact, these proposals usually promised greater economic benefits than would have resulted from comparable expenditures in our highly-profitable candy and newspaper businesses.

But the promised benefits from these textile investments were illusory. Many of our competitors, both domestic and foreign, were stepping up to the same kind of expenditures and, once enough companies did so, their reduced costs became the baseline for reduced prices industrywide. Viewed individually, each company's capital investment decision appeared cost-effective and rational; viewed collectively, the decisions neutralized each other and were irrational, just as happens when each person watching a parade decides he can see a little better if he stands on tiptoes.

After each round of investment, all the players had more money in the game and returns remained anemic. Thus, we faced a miserable choice: huge capital investment would have helped to keep our textile business alive, but would have left us with terrible returns on ever-growing amounts of capital. After the investment, moreover, the foreign competition would still have retained a major, continuing advantage in labor costs. A refusal to invest, however, would make us increasingly non-competitive, even measured against domestic textile manufacturers. I always thought myself in the position described by Woody Allen in one of his movies: "More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

For an understanding of how the to-invest-or-not-to-invest dilemma plays out in a commodity business, it is instructive to look at Burlington Industries, by far the largest U.S. textile company both 21 years ago and now. In 1964 Burlington had sales of $1.2 billion against our $50 million. It had strengths in both distribution and production that we could never hope to match and also, of course, had an earnings record far superior to ours. Its stock sold at 60 at the end of 1964; ours was 13.

Burlington made a decision to stick to the textile business, and in 1985 had sales of about $2.8 billion. During the 1964-85 period, the company made capital expenditures of about $3 billion, far more than any other U.S. textile company and more than $200-per-share on that $60 stock. A very large part of the expenditures, I am sure, was devoted to cost improvement and expansion. Given Burlington's basic commitment to stay in textiles, I would also surmise that the company's capital decisions were quite rational.

Nevertheless, Burlington has lost sales volume in real dollars and has far lower returns on sales and equity now than 20 years ago. Split 2-for-1 in 1965, the stock now sells at 34-on an adjusted basis, just a little over its $60 price in 1964. Meanwhile, the CPI has more than tripled. Therefore, each share commands about one-third the purchasing power it did at the end of 1964. Regular dividends have been paid but they, too, have shrunk significantly in purchasing power.

This devastating outcome for the shareholders indicates what can happen when much brain power and energy are applied to a faulty premise. The situation is suggestive of Samuel Johnson's horse: "A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse, not a remarkable mathematician." Likewise, a textile company that allocates capital brilliantly within its industry is a remarkable textile company, but not a remarkable business.

My conclusion from my own experiences and from much observation of other businesses is that a good managerial record (measured by economic returns) is far more a function of what business boat you get into than it is of how effectively you row (though intelligence and effort help considerably, of course, in any business, good or bad). Some years ago I wrote: "When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." Nothing has since changed my point of view on that matter. Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

So, no : infinite blocks to not give "the miners" any sort of option, because "the miners" as a collective noun do not exist. There exist individual miners exclusively, and the incentives of individuals are, should the Gavin scam actually be implemented, firmly oriented towards destroying the commons that is Bitcoin.

There's no way out of this problem, and simple ignorance of economy or game theory is not a solution.

If the limit is 20 then the miners will go to 20. If the limit is infinity then the miners will go to infinity. The issue isn't "what is the best arbitrary number." The issue is that the cost to maintain a full node should not be determined by the miners who have an economic incentive to include as much spam into the blockchain as is willing to pay a pittance. It's a matter of privatized gains and socialized costs; they get the profit from including the spam, and the rest of us pay the cost.

[onemorexmr]

If the limit is 20 then the miners will go to 20. If the limit is infinity then the miners will go to infinity. The issue isn't "what is the best arbitrary number." The issue is that the cost to maintain a full node should not be determined by the miners who have an economic incentive to include as much spam into the blockchain as is willing to pay a pittance. It's a matter of privatized gains and socialized costs; they get the profit from including the spam, and the rest of us pay the cost.

wow... this is the first time i read something reasonable from you!

i dont argue that this is not an issue. i say it's a fact that the miners decide.

thats why i say we need monetary incentives for them to act in a good way (e.g. making smaller blocks).

ps: i'd really appreciate if you would stop quoting this stupid billionaire and use your own arguments.

[danielpbarron]

i say it's a fact that the miners decide.

thats why i say we need monetary incentives for them to act in a good way (e.g. making smaller blocks).

Except it isn't a fact at all; it's a silly assumption -- a lie perpetuated by who-knows-who. There already is a monetary incentive for miners to make smaller blocks, in that MPEx customers will not buy their newly minted coins produced on a counterfeit "larger blocks" chain. If the miners want to stay in business, they will keep doing as we say. Don't get me wrong, the miners secure the network; we couldn't get by without them. There will always be a chain mined by a lot of hashing power, but the miners don't get to decide which chain that is. They will go wherever the profit is, and that is determined by demand for coins.

P.S. this isn't my argument, but since you are blind to things written by billionaires, I took the liberty of paraphrasing it for you.

[onemorexmr]

i say it's a fact that the miners decide.

thats why i say we need monetary incentives for them to act in a good way (e.g. making smaller blocks).

Except it isn't a fact at all; it's a silly assumption -- a lie perpetuated by who-knows-who. There already is a monetary incentive for miners to make smaller blocks, in that MPEx customers will not buy their newly minted coins produced on a counterfeit "larger blocks" chain. If the miners want to stay in business, they will keep doing as we say. Don't get me wrong, the miners secure the network; we couldn't get by without them. There will always be a chain mined by a lot of hashing power, but the miners don't get to decide which chain that is. They will go wherever the profit is, and that is determined by demand for coins.

P.S. this isn't my argument, but since you are blind to things written by billionaires, I took the liberty of paraphrasing it for you.

why would he want to buy more coins? afaik he already has too much? and mpex customers... well they seem to already have enough coins too.. otherwise they couldnt afford the 30btc entrance fee for nothing really intersting

and no: i am not blind to things billionaires write. i am just not interested in the opinion of somebody who makes death threats to people who dont share his opinion.

btw i dont believe him at all. because if the fork happens that means that 80% of all miners mine the new chain. he cant even use his legacy old chain anymore - because without miners he cant transact...

i am very sure he will bribe miners OR switch to the new chain (=Bitcoin)

[iCEBREAKER]

If the limit is 20 then the miners will go to 20. If the limit is infinity then the miners will go to infinity. The issue isn't "what is the best arbitrary number." The issue is that the cost to maintain a full node should not be determined by the miners who have an economic incentive to include as much spam into the blockchain as is willing to pay a pittance. It's a matter of privatized gains and socialized costs; they get the profit from including the spam, and the rest of us pay the cost.

wow... this is the first time i read something reasonable from you!

i dont argue that this is not an issue. i say it's a fact that the miners decide.

thats why i say we need monetary incentives for them to act in a good way (e.g. making smaller blocks).

ps: i'd really appreciate if you would stop quoting this stupid billionaire and use your own arguments.

This is not the first time DP has written reasonably in this thread, it's just the first time he got through your defensiveness and succeeded in making a point in a way you could understand.  Which is still laudable accomplishment, and it was very well stated.

MP is many things but certainly not stupid.  Your resentment of his wealth and puckish personality in no way diminish his many well considered, logically consistent arguments.  MP is eminently quotable, as few people on this planet can match his combination of topical expertise and exacting articulation.

[onemorexmr]

If the limit is 20 then the miners will go to 20. If the limit is infinity then the miners will go to infinity. The issue isn't "what is the best arbitrary number." The issue is that the cost to maintain a full node should not be determined by the miners who have an economic incentive to include as much spam into the blockchain as is willing to pay a pittance. It's a matter of privatized gains and socialized costs; they get the profit from including the spam, and the rest of us pay the cost.

wow... this is the first time i read something reasonable from you!

i dont argue that this is not an issue. i say it's a fact that the miners decide.

thats why i say we need monetary incentives for them to act in a good way (e.g. making smaller blocks).

ps: i'd really appreciate if you would stop quoting this stupid billionaire and use your own arguments.

This is not the first time DP has written reasonably in this thread, it's just the first time he got through your defensiveness and succeeded in making a point in a way you could understand.  Which is still laudable accomplishment, and it was very well stated.

MP is many things but certainly not stupid.  Your resentment of his wealth and puckish personality in no way diminish his many well considered, logically consistent arguments.  MP is eminently quotable, as few people on this planet can match his combination of topical expertise and exacting articulation.

my defensiveness? well... not really sure what i should answer to that. i didnt change my mind in the slightest? i still think the miners decide and told why? so i dont really understand your point.

but well ok: he is not stupid and he can certainly articulate very well.
that doesnt change the fact that he makes death threats to people who dont share his opinion.

so i retreat: sorry MP; you are not stupid.

[danielpbarron]

i say it's a fact that the miners decide.

thats why i say we need monetary incentives for them to act in a good way (e.g. making smaller blocks).

Except it isn't a fact at all; it's a silly assumption -- a lie perpetuated by who-knows-who. There already is a monetary incentive for miners to make smaller blocks, in that MPEx customers will not buy their newly minted coins produced on a counterfeit "larger blocks" chain. If the miners want to stay in business, they will keep doing as we say. Don't get me wrong, the miners secure the network; we couldn't get by without them. There will always be a chain mined by a lot of hashing power, but the miners don't get to decide which chain that is. They will go wherever the profit is, and that is determined by demand for coins.

P.S. this isn't my argument, but since you are blind to things written by billionaires, I took the liberty of paraphrasing it for you.

why would he want to buy more coins? afaik he already has too much? and mpex customers... well they seem to already have enough coins too.. otherwise they couldnt afford the 30btc entrance fee for nothing really intersting

and no: i am not blind to things billionaires write. i am just not interested in the opinion of somebody who makes death threats to people who dont share his opinion.

btw i dont believe him at all. because if the fork happens that means that 80% of all miners mine the new chain. he cant even use his legacy old chain anymore - because without miners he cant transact...

i am very sure he will bribe miners OR switch to the new chain (=Bitcoin)

There is no such thing as having "enough" bitcoin. Everyone wants more coins or they aren't paying attention. But that's not exactly the point; as you say, he already has "too much" which means he'll have "too much" gavincoin to sell on the open market. Remember, the fork will cause all current holders to have equal amounts of both coins. So he'll be selling the new coin and buying the old coin.

Regarding "death threats," I'll quote MP:

In a normal society, the threat is a fundamental tool to hierarchy building. The socialist state does not want a normally functioning society, but instead this stellar configuration where the state is at the center, and every citizen linked to it to the detriment of all else. The freedom to threaten is not merely my fundamental, unassailable sovereign property, but moreover essential for the construction of effectual instruments to squash the socialists and their golums.

Regarding the "80% of the miners" : what part of "the miners will go where there is profit" don't you understand? I get it: the fork won't happen unless some majority of miners is stupid enough to upgrade. That doesn't mean they'll stay upgraded. I get it: transactions will slow down on the real chain if the fork happens. That doesn't mean they'll stay slow. The miners will find themselves with 3`600 new coins to sell every day, which is just about a million dollars at the moment. Add to that all the forked coins opponents of the change will be dumping on the market. Unless all the redditards and bezzletrons can scrape together enough money to cover that, the miners will be forced by matter of economic necessity to switch back to the real bitcoin.

What does it even mean to "bribe the miners" ?? If there's money to pay the miners off, aren't you just hiring them to mine for you? Are you just using this word in an attempt to besmirch?

[onemorexmr]

Regarding the "80% of the miners" : what part of "the miners will go where there is profit" don't you understand? I get it: the fork won't happen unless some majority of miners is stupid enough to upgrade. That doesn't mean they'll stay upgraded. I get it: transactions will slow down on the real chain if the fork happens. That doesn't mean they'll stay slow. The miners will find themselves with 3`600 new coins to sell every day, which is just about a million dollars at the moment. Add to that all the forked coins opponents of the change will be dumping on the market. Unless all the redditards and bezzletrons can scrape together enough money to cover that, the miners will be forced by matter of economic necessity to switch back to the real bitcoin.

What does it even mean to "bribe the miners" ?? If there's money to pay the miners off, aren't you just hiring them to mine for you? Are you just using this word in an attempt to besmirch?

i dont think one person (a billionare or not) is able to control a market. if the economic majority decides to sell all bitcoins after the fork (and keep their mpcoins) well it might happen.
but that will be a very huge disruption and the price will certainly fall on both chains. i will just keep both and see how it'll plays out. but i am sure bitcoin - and not mpcoin - will win.

but thats something we can only guess about. you think mpcoin will win, because you think the economic majority is on mpex. i dont think so.

bribe the miners: its easy. miners have to announce that they will accept / create bigger blocks. just set up a tool that sends 5btc to any new block's coinbase address which does not advertise this. you have successfully bribed miners and there wont be the required 80% of them (5btc is just a number out of my ass)

and no. this is not an attempt to besmirch (actually i think mp is besmirching miners with some of its statements but thats a whole other story which does not belong in here). i'd say its more expensive to mine himself (he'd need at least 20% of hashing power) than to bribe 80% of miners. so i dont see your point here.

[Lauda]

Why don't we just remove the limit altogether and let the miners decide the blocksize? They've been doing that anyway so instead of an arbitrary cap, just let the market decide?

... either way it's better to pull of the 1MB band-aid than to let it fester with unconfirmed TXS imo.

Well we wouldn't want someone to make a block with an insane size. The limit has to be at some point for now, until they come up with something better.
Even though the picture shows us that we're getting close to the cap, it is not all that dark.
Right now:

[iCEBREAKER]

you think mpcoin will win, because you think the economic majority is on mpex. i dont think so.

Bitcoin is exquisitely engineered to provide all manner of leverage to those defending against hostile forks.  It is beyond ultra-conservative; it is unapologetically royalist and reactionary.

MP and his Knights Of Satoshi will be fighting a downhill battle to secure the network, with the sun blinding the enemy and the invisible hand obliterating the aggressors faster than they can retreat.

"In Winterfell 500 men can hold out against 10,000." -Ned Stark